Elon Musk and tech’s "great man" fallacy
Jack Dorsey, Twitter’s co-founder and ex-CEO, this week anointed
Elon Musk as the social media site’s savior, calling him the
“singular solution” to its business problems.
Twitter, Dorsey said, would ideally be a
“public good,” not a for-profit company. (For all its cultural influence, it has long struggled to make money.) But given that it is a company,
“Elon is the singular solution I trust” to run it, he proclaimed.
“I trust his mission to extend the light of consciousness.”
Leaving aside the hokey
“light of consciousness” bit, the idea that
Musk alone can fix
Twitter is a popular one in certain tech circles. After all, he has led 2 of the most spectacular business success stories of our time, in
Tesla and SpaceX. Both endeavors, by all accounts, depended heavily on
Musk’s personal vision, commitment, showmanship and business acumen.
